1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a lens barrel and an optical apparatus including the lens barrel, and more particularly, to an optical apparatus, such as a digital still camera or a video camera, which includes an interchangeable lens or which is combined with a lens barrel.
2. Description of the Related Art
In optical apparatuses and interchangeable lenses of the related art, a lens moving frame is moved in the optical axis direction by an actuator such as a voice coil motor or a stepper motor. In most lens barrels including a zoom lens, first and second moving frames for a variator lens unit and a focus lens unit are movable in the optical axis direction. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 6-324252 discloses a lens barrel in which a first lens moving frame and a second lens moving frame, of a plurality of lens moving frames, are adjacent to each other in the optical path and are both movable in the optical axis direction for zooming or focusing.
In the zoom lens barrel of the above publication, the first and second lens moving frames are held by guide bars in a manner such as to be movable in the optical axis direction. In this case, the first lens moving frame shares a sleeve bar with a front lens moving frame.
In most lens barrels including a zoom lens, zooming and focusing are performed by moving a first lens moving frame and a second lens moving frame in the optical axis direction. In another type of lens barrel, one lens moving frame is moved in a direction perpendicular to the optical axis in order to correct a motion blur caused when the zoom lens vibrates (a hand shake occurs).
Such a lens barrel stores two driving units for driving the first and second lens moving frames and two motion-blur correction driving sources for driving one lens moving frame in the yaw direction and pitch direction, of the directions perpendicular to the optical axis. The lens barrel also stores a flexible printed wiring board (flexible printed board) that electrically connects the two driving units and the two motion-blur correction driving sources to a control unit.
The lens barrel that stores these members tends to have a large size and a complicated structure. For example, the length of the lens barrel in the optical axis direction can be decreased by causing a moving range on the optical axis of the first lens moving frame to overlap with that of the second lens moving frame. That is, by increasing the amount of movement of the first lens moving frame toward the second lens moving frame and the amount of movement of the second lens moving frame toward the first lens moving frame, the use efficiency of the space in the lens barrel can be enhanced, and the length of the lens barrel can be shortened. However, when the above-described components are stored in the lens barrel, the lens barrel is enlarged and complicated.